


a triptych on Cet's forgetting

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Dreamblood Series - N. K. Jemisin
Genre: Asexuality, Brown people, Gen, Genderqueer, M/M, Other, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 07:32:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a triptych on Cet's forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> In Jemisin's Dreamblood universe, but written for [The Narcomancer](http://transcriptase.org/fiction/jemisin-n-k-the-narcomancer/), the short story in which Cet and Ginnem star.

When Cet stumbled back into the room, Ginnem was waiting for him. It was nearly morning, but Gatherers slept during the day and Ginnem could see the weariness hanging off him.

"Well?" he asked, noting Cet's lack of surprise on seeing him. 

"It is done." Cet was stumbling, nearly falling; Ginnem placed a hand on his arm. He did not ask if it had been done well, if that could be asked; he could see in the sleepy ease in Cet's eyes. 

"Get into bed," Ginnem said, and smiled as Cet turned towards the window and the rising dawn, at the reluctance expressed with no words. "I think you will do better after some sleep." And after another pause, "Do I instruct you in _your_ service, Gatherer Cet?"

Cet shook his head and followed orders, clambering into bed, drawing his knees up to his chin and throwing his hands out behind his head; apparently the man slept like a child, and Ginnem smiled again, helpless at the humanity of him. He was aware, suddenly, of Cet's madness gathering. 

After a moment, Ginnem climbed in beside him, letting him take up all the space he wanted to take, being content with the remainder. Cet's eyes snapped into focus suddenly; at the intensity of that inquiry, Ginnem could only shrug in return. "You're fortunate," he said, thinking it through as he said it. "The only time in your life, the first, the only…" He had acquired something of Cet's own reticence; he left that sentence unfinished. "But without pain. Without hurt. Without… " – another delicate pause – "brutality."

"I understand that." Cet was looking at him with sudden sharp intelligence. "Why do you stay with me, Sister Ginnem?"

He shrugged, and mumbled, "For your first time, and afterwards to be alone." He pulled himself together and expressed himself, at last. "It is not right in Her sight."

Cet half-sat up, turning over his palms, inspecting his marks of service. "I understand that, Sister Ginnem" – but this time softly and sweetly, and he rolled over and went to sleep.

*

The journey back to the city would take five days, five long, slow, river-rocked days with the fertile plains unfolding on either side of them. The barge was arranged with long benches for its passengers, with storage and sleeping-spaces aft, and open in front, the afternoon light soft and diffused by water. Cet lay on the rearmost bench, with Ginnem sitting on the wooden planking in front of him, so they were at eye level and shadowed by the canopy.

"Sister Ginnem," Cet murmured. "Why so solicitous?"

He was pulling his knees up on the bench as he spoke, his eyes half-closed. Ginnem smiled across at him. "If you persist in behaving like a human being, Gatherer Cet, I may be forced to reassess my views of all your kind." 

Cet laughed a little, something else alarming from him, and Ginnem sighed. "In answer to your question: because I, like you, am tasked with simple service. To heal, in any way I can."

Cet did not move, and for a second Ginnem wondered if he had heard. But then night dropped like a window drape. Ginnem stood up, gradually, not rocking the boat, and looked out over the darkened landscape, flattened and empty of life. Mist curled off the surface of the river, slate-grey instead of rich with silt. To Ginnem's eyes, the featurelessness of the landscape had the oily sheen of nightmare, with the shadows hiding unknown horrors.

Still without moving, Cet murmured, "There is no healing this."

Ginnem said, lifting his voice, “As I would tell a soldier, going into a battle; as I would tell a woman on finding a weight in her breast: go into this dark place, Gatherer Cet, I can neither stop nor accompany you, but go knowing you are loved.”  


When he looked back over the water, it was bright with sun, rippled in rhythm with the songs of the river.

They had taken on hired help for the return journey: barge hands who did the work asked of them without complaint but with hummed and chanted songs, sung over and over with the patterns of the oars. When they reached their refrain and the slap of the oars grew louder, Ginnem leaned across and kissed Cet's head, stroking his hair. What the hands were thinking, Ginnem did not know. Cet might be known by sight to men from Gujaareh, and equally he might not – his work was done by night, under cowl. And for all it had become a city's truism that you could tell a Gatherer by their eyes, Ginnem understood the real meaning in that: it was the mixture of empathy and ruthlessness. Cet had seen perhaps thirty floods, been a Gatherer since apprenticeship at sixteen, and yet had the gaze of something not quite human – someone who had aged by night as well as by day. 

But he was sleeping now.

Ginnem drew breath and kissed Cet again; Cet responded with a quiet sigh. A Sister and her humble petitioner, they sailed on.

*

"You don't have to do this, Cet." A final entreaty from Ginnem; Cet treated it with the compassion and ruthlessness it deserved.

"I do." He held out a hand and wonderingly, Ginnem took it: the city was resolving into familiarity around them, the scents of the river markets carrying across the still air, incense and citrus, and rotting fruit. "With time," Cet went on, thoughtfully and viciously truthful, "I would forget who and what I am."

In that sunlit world, Ginnem allowed himself the sight of another: Cet as he would have been, other than his gifts. Cet with all his Gatherer's power, become softly human and quiescent. He looked at the plank to the quayside, thought of taking Cet with him into the anonymity of the crowd, stripped. 

"The _what_ , for me, is more frightening than the who." Cet looked up, and quietly, without fuss, Ginnem let him go. "I choose to do this, Sister Ginnem. I choose it – without pain, without brutality. Without fear."

Ginnem gave a half-bow of manuflection. "In peace, Gatherer Cet."

Cet gave him another rare smile. Behind them, the water running down through all the fertile lands; in front of them the city. They disembarked together, holding hands for balance, going on to solid ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "anonymity" square for kink_bingo.


End file.
